Mass shootings, Andrew Scheer, Gun Control, and Canada

Trigger warning: gory image below

There have been two mass shootings in the US in less than 13 hours. There are at least 29 dead and more than 50 wounded, some critically.

The first was in El Paso, Texas, in a shopping centre. The shooter drove 10 hours to get to his target because he wanted to kill Mexicans. Texas is an open-carry state. Chances are good most people in that mall were packing. Yet the shooter was able to kill and maim and was arrested alive. So much for that theory that the only answer to a bad guy with a gun is good guys with more guns.

The second was in Dayton, Ohio. A gunman killed 9 people and injured many more in a 30 second burst of bullets in a popular nightclub district before police shot and killed him. 

After the El Paso shooting victims were refusing medical help because ICE was waiting at the hospital to arrest Mexicans, or Mexican-looking people.

The US has a huge problem. People have been killed, randomly, while minding their own business, in churches, shopping malls, movie theatres, night clubs, concerts, businesses, and just out on the street.

The US has had more mass shootings in 2019 that there have been days in this year.

It is an epidemic. 

If people were dying and being hospitalised at this rate from a virus, there would be government action. There would be quarantines and protocols and everything possible would be done to bring the epidemic to an end.

But it isn't a virus. It's guns. It's white supremacy. It's hatred. It's people who think they are somehow entitled to kill people they don't like. It's a national zeitgeist that says "we can't interfere because 200+ years ago our founding fathers enshrined the right to bear muskets that could get a shot off every 5 minutes or so, and so now everyone has the right to own weapons of mass destruction".

It's a President and government who condone this sort of behaviour.

It's a National Rifle Association that has wealth and political power and owns pretty well all elected Republicans and some Democrats as well.

It is, although not a virus, a deep and terrible sickness.

And what is it that makes the US so susceptible to this sickness? It isn't this way in other developed countries. Only the US. So, what is different? Hint: Gun Control. But that could change if the CPC form our next government. The US mass shooting epidemic could creep over our border and inflict the violence and pain and suffering on Canadians too.

The CPC in Canada consort with the Canadian equivalent of the NRA, the National Firearms Association (NFA). They have an affiliated organisation, the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights (CCFR). These two groups lobby parliament over loosening gun controls in Canada.  CPC MPs and candidates have had shooting parties as fundraisers. Michelle Rempel was given a gun and gun accessories in thanks for her work to block further gun controls.

Andrew Scheer received an A grade from the CCFR for promising to repeal many of the gun ownership, usage, and transportation laws currently in effect in Canada. In fact, Canada's conservatives have a long history of wanting to open the door to mire firearms in Canada.

I would like to point out that guns can have a powerful impact on people without ever being fired. Women's shelter workers have plenty of stories of women who stayed with an abusive partner for years because he would threaten them, or their children, or their pets with his gun. Having a gun in the house can be a coercive force that makes battered women completely powerless to fight back or leave.

Guns are the most effective method of suicide. Having a gun available makes it far more likely a suicidal person will be successful in ending their own life.

Assault rifles like the ones used in many US mass shootings exist for one purpose, and one purpose only - to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. You can't hunt with them. You would blow a deer apart and be picking up pieces after. You might get your jollies shooting one at a shooting range, but you can probably get as much adrenaline and endorphines by riding a good roller-coaster. And your jollies shouldn't open the door to a trade in weapons that is killing hundreds and thousands of people. Your moment of Ya-hoo! vs a six year old's life. Can you justify that? Is your happy time worth more to you than people's lives? Really? Just how selfish are you?

I need you to see something. It's pretty awful, just going to warn you up front here.
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This is an emergency trauma room after treating a victim of a mass shooting involving an assault weapon. Yes, it's horrific. Yes, it's real. Say no to Andrew Scheer and the CPC because they want to make weapons like this easier to access in Canada.

It's time to open our eyes. We need to take a stand. In the US there have been more mass shootings this calendar year than there have been days. And if we let it in, it will come here. We have to look the horror in the face and say NO.

This was posted by an ER doctor on Twitter. ER staff and trauma specialists in the US are begging the government to restrict assault weapons. They fire many rounds in a very short time and the bullets tear apart their victims. ER and trauma staff can't, and shouldn't have to, face this carnage over and over.

Meanwhile, Andrew Scheer and the CPC want Canadians to be able to buy whatever kind of firearm they want... We have to put our collective foot down and say NO. Canada does not become an abattoir. Not on our watch.